Friday, July 1, 2016

David Day!

Fun Fact: Apparently birds pooping on you is good luck. I didn't feel very lucky.
Today was David Day!
First we went to Bargello and we saw three different Davids-from the story of David and Goliath. Two of the sculptures were by Donatello and I can't remember the third. It was pretty interesting to compare all of them because they were each very different from the others. One David had the typical heroic build and made him look a lot older than he was actually supposed to be. Another was smaller and the age was more accurate, and the third was very, very feminine. We learned about the controversy that circled around that statue because it hinted at promiscuity and homosexuality, both of which were not acceptable at the time.

In Piazza della Signoria there is yet another David, and it is an exact replica of the David (Michelangelo's'). There is another David in Florence as well and it's similar to Michelangelo's, except that it is green.

Later on we went to Academia and finally got to see THE DAVID. After seeing it in pictures and on tv it was amazing to see the real thing in person. He was around 17 feet tall and made out of one block of marble, which is insane to thing about.

Dr. Tanta told us to watch the other people around us and how their reaction to seeing David, and that ended up being pretty funny. People kept averting their eyes (David is naked) and some people just smiled and made jokes with the people around them.

Each of us chose an artwork to present on, and David was mine! It felt great to learn so much of his history and tell everyone all of the secrets/not well known facts about him.